Author: Disini & Disini Law Office

Zhejiang, China – China opened its digital ‘cyber court’ last Friday to address the rapidly increasing number of internet-related claims more efficiently. The Hangzhou Internet Court’s first case was a copyright infringement dispute between a web company and an online writer. The trial was accessed by legal agents from Hangzhou and Beijing via their computers and was streamed in the courtroom on a large screen, Some lawyers however, were against it over privacy concerns. Human rights lawyer Liang Xiaojun said that people involved in the cases might not want their personal information to be shared with the public. Source: […]

Obama-era plans for a US Cyber Command independent from the NSA has been given the green light by President Trump this week. The action was recommended by former former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, who said that the missions of the NSA and CyberCom often come in conflict with each other. Even though the two had been able to work well together in the past, it isn’t the right approach. Separation will better allow both groups to pursue their ends independently. One problem that an independent CyberCom might run into is a shortage of recruits, since they will be competing […]

Conservative social network Gab posted on its Twitter account that it has been removed from Google’s Play Store for violation of hate speech policy. Apple had previously blocked it from their App Store for similar reasons. Google did not give any specific instances that warranted the app’s removal, but instead said that social networking apps need to have sufficient level of moderation on content that promote violence or hate. Gab founder Andrew Torba said that the app had been on the Play Store for months, and that they had not made any major changes. The removal came at the height […]

Right after a split that took place at the start of the month, another Bitcoin hard fork is scheduled to happen three months from now. Jean-Pierre Rupp, Bitcoinj developer, filed an announcement earlier this week which mentioned the upgrade to 2MB blocks that will continue to work on SegWit2x. While SegWit2x members gave the proposal their general approval, Bitcoin core developers opposing SegWit2x said that the Bitcoin Core client 0.15.0 will automatically be disconnecting nodes supporting the fork. The cryptocurrency was also reported to have hit a new high a few days ago, surpassing the $4000 mark. Source: CoinTelegraph

Last Friday, the Ukrainian central bank sent a letter to banks, warning of a new malware that can incapacitate systems similar to the NotPetya cyberattack that took place last June 27. According to the bank, the malware will be delivered using word document email attachments. At present, the Kiev central bank is coordinating with the police and government-backed Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) to bolster the defenses of the Ukrainian banking sector. Rumored to be a testing ground for Russian state-sponsored hacking, Ukraine is currently in a difficult position to protect state institutions and systemic companies from cyberattacks. It is […]

Last Thursday, cable giant HBO announced that it was able to take back control of their social media accounts after a hacking incident last Wednesday. Twitter accounts of several HBO shows, including Game of Thrones and John Oliver’s show, had been breached by a hacking group called OurMine. The group said that they were just testing HBO’s security, and the company should contact them for an “upgrade”. The hacking group is said to be unrelated to the group who breached HBO’s network and leaked unaired episodes. Source: CBC CA

San Francisco, USA – Digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation expressed their concerns over the dropping of neo-Nazi groups by internet companies such as Google, GoDaddy, and Cloudflare. The companies cut their services to the website of hate groups associated with the incident in Charlottesville, Virginia where white nationalists protested the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue. In a blogpost, EFF’s executive director Cindy Cohn said that what they tech companies did was “dangerous”, and that the power to decide who and who doesn’t get to speak should not be handed to any company or government. They also […]

Researchers from Trend Micro have discovered around 340 apps in Google Play Store infected with the GhostClicker malware. The malware is designed to click on the adware developer’s ads served on Google AdMob platform, similar to Skyfin and Mapin. It also generates popup ads, and redirects users to websites specified by the developer. Experts say that the malware is intended for monetary profit and not for stealing personal data. Researchers added that GhostClicker has been active in Play Store since August 2016. As of August 7, 101 out of 340 apps reported as infected were still present in Play […]

Researchers from the Barcelona’s Universitat Oberta de Catalunya are currently developing a watermarking system that can help identify doctored video and images. Mehdi Fallahpour and David Megías of the Kriptography and Information Security for Open Networks (KISON) group has revealed that their method can embed more information per second compared to similar existing technologies. However, what makes it groundbreaking is its reversibility, which allows the media to be restored to its original state. Yolanda Pena, a digital-rights lawyer says that while the technology will be a big help in determining fraudulent use of digital content should copyright owners want to […]

A “flaw” in the in the Controller Area Network (CAN) of modern cars can allow hackers to shut down critical components in modern cars such as airbags and brakes. Discovered through a collaboration of Linklayer Labs, Politecnico di Milano, and Trend Micro’s Forward-looking Threat Research (FTR) team, the vulnerability was determined to be “unpatchable”, since it was a standard design choice. Fixing it would mean changing how the CAN works at the most basic level. Researchers say that realistically speaking, the problem will only likely be resolved in the next generation of vehicles. The CAN protocol was developed by Bosch […]

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This blog is the embodiment of a vision we have at Disini & Disini (D&D) of an IT empowered citizenry where we, as a people, harness information available through the internet to bridge the gaps where there may be lapses. As part of our advocacy, we take full advantage of the accessibility of cyberspace by developing this blog.